According to copies of the court documents obtained by thinq_, the trio accuse Sony of a failure to adequately protect customer data. "According to information provided by industry experts and confidential informants," the papers claim, "Sony knew that its inadequate security systems placed it at increased risk for the attack, which directly and proximately caused the theft of its Customers' Personal Information and a month-long interruption of the PlayStation and SPE Networks."

The suit goes on to claim: "Sony took numerous precautions and spent lavishly to secure its proprietary development server containing its own sensitive information [...] but recklessly declined to provide adequate protections for its Customers' Personal Information."

As well as the accusation that no permanent firewall solution was in place for the attacked servers, the suit further claims: "Sony sought to cut its costs at the expense of its Customers by terminating a significant number of employees prior to the security breach, including personnel responsible for maintaining the security of the Network.

"Moreover, just two weeks before the April breach, Sony laid off a substantial percentage of its Sony Online Entertainment workforce, including a number of employees in the Network Operations Centre, which, according to Confidential Witness 2, is the group that is responsible for preparing for and responding to security breaches, and who ostensibly has the skills to bring the Network's security technology up-to-date."

The suit also details numerous instances of small-scale attacks against the service and its customers along with repeated warnings of security flaws leading up to the main security breach, accusing Sony of negligence in ignoring the signs.

06/10/2011

Guetta argued that the Run DMC photograph wasn't original enough to deserve copyright protection. Although it's widely hailed by photography buffs as being influential, Guetta's lawyers argued that Run-DMC's pose in the picture -- the "B-Boy Stance" -- was already in the public domain. Additionally, Guetta argued there were many photographs of Run-DMC from the 1980's that were similar, including the style of clothing, pose, demeanor and background.

Just as importantly, Judge Pregerson has ruled that Guetta can't defend his work as transformative fair use.

The judge examines the four factors of the fair use test, including (1) the purpose and character of use; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for the copyrighted work, and determines that Guetta can't satisfy his burden in establishing this defense.

"To permit one artist the right to use without consequence the original creative and copyrighted work of another artist simply because that artist wished to create an alternative work would eviscerate any protection by the Copyright Act," concludes Judge Pregerson. "Without such protection, artists would lack the ability to control the reproduction and public display of their work and, by extension, to justly benefit from their original creative work."

This decision, along with another in New York court last March over paintings made by the American artist Richard Prince that appropriated copyrighted photographs, might be the beginning of a massive limiting of the fair use defense enjoyed by artists to copyright claims. One has to wonder whether Andy Warhol would have survived litigation and whether documentary and music "re-mixers" have any safe ground from liability today.

On Asian piracy:
“Millions and millions of copies of Torchlight downloaded from the illicit market in certain Asian territories. And that’s fine with us. We knew it was gonna happen. For us, we kind of see it as, down the road, we’re building an audience. We’ve long since announced that we’re going to be doing an MMO, and y’know, we kind of view it as a marketing tool for us. We’re going to have millions of people who are familiar with our franchise, familiar with our style, and who are going to be ready customers when we do a global MMO.”

06/05/2011

However, there may be another motive here. DC (through Warner Brothers) is still going through a legal nightmare with the heirs of Siegel and Shuster. Recently a judge awarded the heirs the rights to certain elements of Superman, specifically the ones from Action Comics #1 in 1938. In 2013, the heirs will own the rights to the classic costume, the Kryptonian origins, Lois Lane, Clark Kent, and Superman’s ability to jump buildings in a single bound. DC retains his ability to fly and the most famous villains such as Lex Luthor. This reboot could be DC’s way of shedding the elements that they will no longer hold the rights to